In the area around Portugal’s second largest city, Porto, dozens of fires were burning in July 2005. Months of drought have created extreme fire danger, and hundreds of firefighters have been battling the fires since July 8. The fires have dusted Porto with ash and closed the major highway between Lisbon and Porto at times. According to news reports, the fires may have been started deliberately.

This image of central Portugal shows the region around Porto. Locations where the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite detected active fires on July 12, 2005, are outlined in red. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.